﻿Newton forced to apologise after misleading MPs in WOW debate

The minister for disabled people has been forced to apologise to MPs after Disability News Service (DNS) caught her misleading MPs about support for disabled people for the fourth time in less than a year.

The misleading comments by Sarah Newton (pictured) about disability poverty came in December when she was responding to a House of Commons debate on the impact of eight years of cuts to disability support.

But it was
only on Tuesday this week, four days after DNS had drawn the attention of her
press officers to her misleading comments, that she sent a letter apologising
to MPs.

December’s
backbench debate was the result of months of lobbying of cross-party MPs by the
disabled-led WOWcampaign,
which has been pushing for six years for the government to carry out an
assessment of the impact of all its cuts to disabled people’s support.

But in her
response to a motion calling on the government to carry out a CIA, Newton told
MPs in December that Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) figures showed that
“poverty for people in families with a disabled person has improved since 2010
on three of the four measures, and there was no change in the fourth”.

DNS
subsequently submitted a freedom of information request to DWP, asking for the
data she relied on in making these claims.

Although
three measures do show disability poverty has improved between 2009-10 and
2016-17, the fourth measure – showing relative low income after housing costs –
shows the proportion of individuals in households with a disabled member who
were in poverty rose from 25 per cent to 26 per cent (an increase of four per
cent, or 1 percentage point).

A DWP
spokesperson said: “Immediately after being made aware she had been provided
with incorrect briefing for the debate, the minister sent a letter of apology to
MPs that will be published in the House of Commons library.”

In the
letter, to Labour’s Debbie Abrahams, who secured the debate, Newton blamed an
“inaccurate briefing” for her error.

She said: “I
sincerely apologise for the mistake. I will be placing a copy of this letter in
the House Library, and making a Ministerial correction to Hansard.

“I will also
be providing a copy of this letter to Mr Speaker.”

Ian Jones,
from WOW, said: “This government have lied when denying that austerity was
targeted at disabled people.

“This government
have lied when they say the WCA and austerity have not killed thousands of
disabled people.

“WOWcampaign
believe this pattern of lying can be extended to show that this government is
also lying when they argue their policies are doing no harm to disabled people.”

Michelle
Maher, also from WOW, said the campaign had “fought for the truth” about the
impact of multiple cuts on disabled children and adults over the last eight
years, to demonstrate how they had hit “one section of society harder than any
other group”.

She said: “That
mistakes have continuously been made around disability cuts statistics to the
House of Commons demonstrates that a formal cumulative impact assessment is
needed so all parties and the public know the true impact of austerity… and
with the aim that our rights as citizens of the UK be protected.”

Abrahams
told DNS: “It is extremely disappointing that the minister for disabled people
made such an error on the number of disabled people living in relative poverty
(after housing costs).

“These are
not just abstract numbers; living in poverty for disabled people means living
in isolation, unable to properly heat their homes or feed themselves.

“My debate,
at which the minister made this error, was on understanding all the factors
contributing to disabled people living in poverty and she should heed our calls
for an independent cumulative impact assessment of government cuts to disabled
people, their families and carers.”

It is the
first time that Newton has apologised for the various misleading statements
highlighted by DNS over the last year.

In
January 2018,
she misled MPs about a court of appeal
judgment that was highly critical of her new boss, Esther McVey, just a day
after McVey’s appointment as the new work and pensions secretary.

Last
June, Newton told MPs that there had been “no freeze in
the benefits that disabled people receive”, even though the main component of employment
and support allowance (ESA) and the top-up paid to those in the ESA
work-related activity group, continue to be frozen.

The following month, Newton misled MPs yet again, this time about the origins of the government’s much-criticised Disability Confident employment scheme.

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